Dr. Nazeer Ahmed
Humanity has amassed unprecedented power; yet it lives in profound confusion. We explore distant galaxies, manipulate matter at subatomic scales, and generate immense wealth—yet remain uncertain about the most basic question: Who am I? This crisis of self-understanding lies beneath modern anxiety, injustice, environmental devastation, and spiritual alienation. As a Hadith Qudsi states, “Man ‘arafa nafsahu, faqad ‘arafa Rabbahu”—one who knows oneself knows one’s Lord.
The Islamic spiritual tradition approaches this question not as an abstraction but as a lived reality, presenting a vision of the human far richer than the flattened, horizontal models dominant today.
The Poverty of Modern Definitions
Modern secular thought defines the human reductively. Sometimes man is reduced to matter—an accidental arrangement of atoms governed by blind forces. Yet the economic worth of the human body is negligible, while a living person reshapes history, conquers matter through will, creates beauty from stone and music from sound. Matter cannot choose; it cannot love; it cannot create meaning. To identify man with matter is to deny the very agency that defines him.
Others define the human primarily by reason. From Aristotle to Descartes to the Enlightenment, rationality has been exalted as the essence of humanity. Reason is indeed noble: it grounds logic, science, mathematics, and law. But reason alone cannot explain love, sacrifice, courage, beauty, faith or jusstice. It analyzes reality but cannot taste it. Thought becomes speculation without action, and ethics collapses into circular justification when severed from transcendent reference.
Still others identify the human by rebellion, race, nationality, class, or consumption. These definitions are historically contingent and morally destructive. Race and nationalism have fueled oppression and war; consumerism mortgages self-worth to appetite and advertising; economic reductionism treats people as “factors of production.” None of these categories captures the full dignity of the human, whose identity transcends skin color, borders, and markets.
The Islamic Vision: Five Dimensions of the Human
Islam offers a unified, hierarchical, and holistic vision of the human. Drawing on the Qur’an and building on the insights of sages such as Imam al-Ghazzali, Shaikh Ibn al-‘Arabi, and Imam al-Tirmidhi, we present the human as a being of five dimensions:
- Rūḥ (Spirit)
- Qalb (Heart)
- ‘Aql (Intellect)
- Jism (Body)
- Nafs (Soul / Personhood)
This vision restores coherence to human existence. The Qur’an declares that the human was created as Khalifa—trustee and regent on earth—endowed with the knowledge of the Names (the Asma ul Husna), and honored even above the angels. This dignity arises not from material composition but from the integration of these five dimensions.
The Rūḥ: The Breath of the Command
The Rūḥ is the divine mystery breathed into the human. Its essence is known only to God: “They ask you concerning the Spirit. Say: the Spirit is of the command of my Lord” (17:85). Yet its effect is evident—it bestows life, consciousness, and power. When it departs, the body becomes inert matter. The Rūḥ situates the human between heaven and earth, linking created existence to divine command.
The Qalb: The Fountain of Meaning
At the center of human reality lies the heart, not merely as a biological pump but as a spiritual organ. Imam al-Ghazzali calls it latīfa rabbāniyya—a subtle divine faculty that knows, experiences, loves, and bears responsibility. The Qur’an locates understanding not in the brain but in the heart: blindness is not of the eyes but of the hearts within the breasts.
Imam al-Tirmidhi distinguishes levels of the heart: sadr, qalb, fu’ād, and lubb, moving from receptivity to inner illumination. The heart turns either toward God or toward the world. When oriented toward remembrance, it becomes tranquil; when absorbed by heedlessness, it hardens. Faith, love, mercy, justice, gratitude, and spiritual insight are treasures of the heart—realities inaccessible to reason alone.
Modern science, ironically, lends support to this insight: the heart possesses its own neural network and a powerful electromagnetic field, influencing cognition and emotion. Yet science can describe signals without capturing meaning. The heart remains the locus where knowledge becomes certainty.
The ‘Aql: Reason as Steward, Not Sovereign
The intellect is the crown jewel of the human, enabling abstraction, science, and civilization. It processes sensory data, constructs models, and predicts outcomes. Through it, humanity penetrates the laws of nature and harnesses them for benefit. Yet reason operates within assumptions: objectification, linear time, and the autonomy of nature. These assumptions exclude qualities that matter most—beauty, love, moral value—from the scientific picture.
Reason explains how but not why. It clarifies ethics but cannot ground them. When severed from the heart and revelation, reason becomes powerful yet directionless.
The Jism: The Sacred Vehicle
The body is not a prison of the soul but its vehicle. Fashioned in perfection, it enables action, worship, service, and responsibility. Through the body, the commands of the Shariah are fulfilled, and divine patterns are inscribed in space-time. Though composed of earthly elements, the body participates in mystery: perception is not located in the eye or ear alone but arises from an unseen integration of body, intellect, and soul.
The Nafs: The Moral Self in Motion
The Nafs encompasses the integrated human personality—body, intellect, and heart—animated by the Spirit. It is dynamic, traversing stations from command-driven desire (nafs al-ammārah) through struggle and inspiration to tranquility, contentment, and divine pleasure (nafs al-muṭma’innah, rāḍiyah, marḍiyyah). Moral failure and spiritual ascent are both possibilities. Human destiny is not fixed; it is chosen and is confirmed by divine writ.
Knowledge, Science, and Transcendence
God is one. Knowledge is one, though its modes differ. There is taught knowledge (‘ilm al-‘ibārah), experiential knowledge (‘ilm al-ishārah), and divinely bestowed knowledge (‘ilm ladunnī). Science belongs to the first category: valid, powerful, but partial. Its findings are āyāt—signs pointing to the transcendent. There is no contradiction between faith and science so long as science is recognized as a projection of a deeper, multi-dimensional reality.
Modern physics itself gestures toward this unity: observer and observed are entangled; time is relative; reality resists reduction. Yet without metaphysics, these insights remain fragments.
Consequences for Civilization
A two-dimensional view of humanity produces a soulless world: nature becomes raw material, ethics become utility, and progress becomes exploitation. Environmental devastation and existential anxiety are not accidents; they are outcomes of forgetting the heart and the soul. The Qur’an warns that neglecting the hereafter leads to distortion even in this world.
Conclusion: Knowing the Self
Who am I? I am a being of five dimensions—infused with the Spirit, illumined by the heart, guided by intellect, molded into form by divine writ “with both hands”, tested in space-time through the soul. My purpose is not consumption or domination but ‘ubūdiyyah: to know, serve, and worship God, and to reflect divine attributes as a trustee on earth.
When humanity recovers this integrated vision, knowledge regains meaning, science finds humility, and civilization rediscovers its soul. As Rumi wrote, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the ocean in a drop.”
